Highlights:
The Centre for Management of Health Services, IIM-Ahmedabad has tied up with the IIHMR, Bengaluru and Narayana Health to promote innovation and research in field of health management education.

An international conference was organized by the three institutions as part of this initiative. The motive behind this conference was to discuss the changes that should be brought in overall healthcare delivery system in primary, secondary as well as tertiary care.

IIHMR has set up a long-term association that will assist in building capacity in the healthcare industry. Whereas Narayana Health will provide resources to support this initiative and IIM Ahmedabad will add their expertise to strengthen the collaboration.

The conference shed light on the fact that Indian hospitals need skilled healthcare managers. Experts in the field also said that running a hospital requires healthcare management for a fault-free functioning. A proper healthcare management will help in eradicating inefficiencies, high costs, erratic quality, unequal access, and other issues that the hospitals are currently occupied with.

Explaining the complexity of the field, Dr. Biranchi Jena, Director, IIHMR Bengaluru said that healthcare management training is a more critical than general management education as it requires a thorough understanding of medical and clinical protocols, as well as the service delivery models.

Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty, Chairman and Founder, Narayana Health, said that there is a need for more postgraduates in medicine. Medical students should be offered more opportunities be it at the postgraduate level or in the nursing sector and policies should be changed to enhance the field and prevent it from collapsing.

Prof. Arnab K Laha, Chairperson, CHMS, IIM – Ahmedabad said that healthcare facilities are not affordable and accessible to the common people and that is the biggest challenge. He further added that a collaboration like this will help in resolving these issues by combining the role of analytics and technology and working with like-minded organizations.